IT and e-commerce companies emerge as top recruiters at engineering colleges

Colleges that aren’t part of the premier Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) system are reaping the benefits of an upbeat hiring scenario.Sreeradha D Basu&Prachi Verma | ET Bureau | November 14, 2015, 09:09 IST

Colleges that aren't part of the premier Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) system are reaping the benefits of an upbeat hiring scenario.KOLKATA | NEW DELHI: Google has set the bar high at Delhi Technological University (DTU) with a top salary of $190,000 (Rs 1.25 crore) this placement season, up sharply from last year’s highest offer of $118,000 (Rs 77.9 lakh) by Epic Systems. DTU was formerly the Delhi College of Engineering. At Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, which started placements in early August, there has been a 48.4% jump in the average salary of the current batch to Rs 12.87 lakh so far compared with Rs 8.67 lakh last year.

Top engineering colleges that aren’t part of the premier Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) system are reaping the benefits of an upbeat hiring scenario.

BITS-Pilani, DTU, National Institute of Technology (NIT), Trichy; Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad; and VIT University in Vellore are seeing a jump of up to 49% in average salaries this year over the last. “Placements have been much better this year due to the increase in the number of ‘dream’ companies coupled with the increase in average salary,” said G Balasubramanian, chief placement officer, BITS-Pilani.BITS Pilani also has campuses in Goa and Dubai. Demand has risen as more companies, including first-timers, are visiting campuses. There’s been an increase in the number of jobs offered on average per company and several have raised pay packages from last year’s levels. Oracle, Amazon and Cisco are the three biggest recruiters at BITS Pilani, having made almost 90 offers among them.

Top foreign companies on campus include global payments technology company Visa International offering a salary of $110,000; healthcare software company Epic Systems ($108,000); cloud-based service Guzool ($85,000) and Tokyo-headquartered enterprise resource planning system maker Works Application (6 million yen). “Visa is focussed on attracting talent from the best universities in India, including the non-IITs,” said Michael P Ross, global head of human resources. “With an overall target of 1,000 employees at our Bangalore Technology Developer Centre, we hope (fresh) graduates will constitute approximately 50% of that target.”

Information technology and ecommerce companies remain top recruiters. AK Bakthavatsalam, professor and head of the department of training and placement at NIT Trichy, said that IT product companies flush with startup funding have been aggressively acquiring talent. Amazon is offering up to Rs 29.96 lakh for certain roles this year, compared with Rs 25 lakh paid out last time. At VIT University, for the first time, five companies have hired more than 1,000 students each. These include Cognizant (1,914), Tata Consultancy Services (1,864), Accenture (1,472), Infosys (1,456) and Wipro (1,241).

So-called ‘super dream’ companies —or those that offer a compensation package in excess of Rs 10 lakh a year — at VIT were Paypal, Microsoft, Visa, Cisco, InMobi, Flipkart and Practo, among others, said Samuel Rajkumar, director, placement and training. Paypal recruited 13 students at an annual pay package of Rs 20 lakh each.

Some companies such as AirAsia India prefer non-IIT schools. “We are looking at non-IITs for fresh engineering graduates who have the urge to learn,” Managing Director Mittu Chandilya said. At Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, the average salary for BTech students has gone up by over 25% to Rs 8.6 lakh. The number of students placed is approximately 30% more than those placed at the same time last year.